Gingrich opens double-digit lead in latest Georgia poll

Newt Gingrich has opened up a double-digit lead in Georgia, an encouraging sign in the state the former House Speaker has admitted his campaign hinges on.

The latest poll from Rasmussen shows Gingrich with support from 38 percent of likely voters, good enough for a 12-point lead over presumptive Republican front-runner Mitt Romney. Romney's 26 percent edges Rick Santorum's 20 percent, with Ron Paul's 7 percent rounding out the GOP field.

Gingrich has admitted that a loss in the state he represented for two decades in Congress would leave his campaign "badly weakened" going forward. Georgia will award the most delegates — 76 — of any of the March 6 Super Tuesday contests.

"If any of the three of us lose our home state … I think you have a very, very badly weakened candidacy," Gingrich said on Fox News last month.

"Given the chaos of this race, I don't want to say anything. But I am willing to say I think it is extraordinarily important to win your home state, and it has all sorts of underlying impact if you don't," he added.

Gingrich has campaigned heavily in the state in recent weeks, leaning on former presidential candidate and fellow Georgian Herman Cain at some campaign stops.

"We’re here because we believe Newt Gingrich should be the next president of the United States in America," Cain told a crowd in Cumming, Ga., last week. “And contrary to what the mainstream, lame-stream, lapdog media want you to believe, he can pull it out."

The former House Speaker has been optimistic about his chances in the state, telling a voter last week in suburban Atlanta that he was confident in his political network.

"I would hope to win here and I think, given the years that I spent both helping represent the state in Congress but also helping grow the Republican Party, I think I have some reasonably good likelihood of winning here," said Gingrich.

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